AlignMix How-To

Setting Up Your Data in Excel

In this first AlignMix how-to video I’ll show you how to set up your Excel data so you can easily import it into AlignMix. Now there is 3 ways of doing this. The first way is to have everything on one worksheet. The second way is to have one workbook with multiple worksheets in it and the third way is to have multiple files. Now what do I mean by multiple files? Well, there is 3 types of imports that you can perform here in AlignMix. The first one is the account import which contains all of your account data, the second is your zip to territory assignment which is basically assigning every ZIP code to a territory and the third one is your sales rep import. Now you don’t have to do all of these imports; you may be working from scratch and you won’t have any of this data. In that case, you can skip this step. For those that do have this data, continue watching.

Now let me show you the first example having everything on one worksheet. Here you’ll notice that all the data is presented here in one worksheet and we’re only working with account data for this one example. The top row needs to be your titles, this is how AlignMix knows where all your headers are so you can easily drag and drop all that information into AlignMix during the input process. As you can see here you have your customer ID, your city, the 5-digit zip and all the additional information pertaining to each account. Now I am missing the street address and the actual name of the account. That’s something I decided to not include in my dummy data here for this example. So this is the first way of setting up your data.

The second way is having everything in one workbook. So here you’ll notice the same exact account data then on the second tab we have ZIP code assignment, so ZIP code 00501 is assigned to territory 109 and it’s assigned to District in the Northeast and the third tab represents the sales reps. So we have the sales rep’s name, the assigned territory and the ZIP code that that sales rep resides in. Now if you don’t have this information that’s fine. You can also create a lot of this on the fly which you’ll learn how to do in the coming videos.

And the third way to set up your data is in 3 separate worksheets. So you have a separate account import then you’ll do a separate import for your alignment data for your ZIP code and then you’ll do a third one for all your sales rep data. So each time you’d be opening up a new file and then dragging and dropping all the data in AlignMix. And there you go, you just learn the 3 ways of setting up your data for an AlignMix import. Make sure to watch the videos below to learn how to actually import this data into AlignMix.

Importing Zip Code Data

In this video you will learn how to import Zip-code data into AlignMix. This is the first step to creating new balanced sales territory designs.

In this how-to video I’ll show you how to import ZIP code based data into AlignMix. The first thing to do is open up AlignMix. Once AlignMix opens up we can start. The first thing we need to do is click on file and then click on import and then import your data. Now select the file that you would like to import. The file I’ll be working with is an AlignMix file that has multiple worksheets in the workbook. So let’s click open on this one file. Now, because the one have multiple worksheets I want to choose the correct worksheet for my import. So to do that click back. And here on the first tab you’ll see account data, then on the second tab ZIP code data and then rep data. I’ll be importing the ZIP code based data first. So click next. Now what we will do is simply click and drag the data from the left to the right and then you let to go. So I’ll be first importing the ZIP code to the location. Next I’d like it to be assigned to a territory ID and also I’d like each one of those ZIP codes to automatically be assigned to a district. So by clicking and dragging from the left to right you simply drop them in the corresponding areas. Now click next. Here you’ll be presented with a summary of what you’re importing. If you’re importing ZIP code based data, you make sure to have ZIP code based data here. If you’re importing another country, you would select that here. You’re also given a summary of what you’re importing. So a total of 11 districts, 103 territories and 41,000 rows of data, essentially every single ZIP Code. So now click next. The software will now suck in all of that data. If you do have any errors in your data you will be presented with an error report. So I have 38 errors in this, which is not uncommon if you’re doing this for the first time. You can simply save this file and then figure out where all your errors are. Typically, these are outdated ZIP codes, typos or foreign ZIP codes in your customer list. When you click okay you’ll see all of your ZIP codes have been automatically assigned to a different territory. And that’s it, you just learn how to import all your ZIP code to territory data into AlignMix.

Importing Account Data

In this video you will learn how to import Account data into AlignMix. Before you start the import process make sure you have properly formatted your account data Excel file.

In this next how-to video I’ll show you how to import account data into your AlignMix map. Now you’ll notice that I already have some data imported here and this is from the previous video where I imported ZIP code to territory data. So now I’m going to be adding the account data to this map. So first step just like in the previous video is go to file, import and import your data. Now I’m going to select the same file. Click open. And this time I don’t need to switch tabs, because it’s still in the first tap, so I’ll leave it in the account data and once again you simply drag from the left into the right. So I’m going to pull in the customer ID, the city, 5-digit zip goes the location, the state, the segments of each account – I’m not going to import the regional manager I don’t need that for this example, the territory ID that this account is assigned to, the rep name of the sales rep assigned to that, the district where this account lies and I’m also going to pull in some actual data for these accounts. I can drop those into account data. When you’ve pulled all your data from the left to the right you can click next. Once again you’ll have a summary screen of everything you’re importing. The main difference here as you notice if you watched the previous videos is that you can’t change the base geography or the country and that’s because we already have some data imported into this current file. So now click next. Once again all your data will be imported and if there are any errors you’ll have an error report that you can export and then fix it and then click okay. Now, if I zoom in – let’s zoom into the Kansas City area you’ll see all of my accounts have now been plotted here on the map and everything is broken down into the type of segmentation that I’ve imported. And that’s it, you’ve just learn how to import accounts data into AlignMix.

Importing Sales Rep Data

In this video you will learn how to import Sales Rep data into AlignMix. This step only applies if you already have sales reps. Before you start the import process make sure you have properly formatted your account data Excel file.

In this next how-to video I’ll show you how to import account data into your AlignMix map. Now you’ll notice that I already have some data imported here and this is from the previous video where I imported ZIP code to territory data. So now I’m going to be adding the account data to this map. So first step just like in the previous video is go to file, import and import your data. Now I’m going to select the same file. Click open. And this time I don’t need to switch tabs, because it’s still in the first tap, so I’ll leave it in the account data and once again you simply drag from the left into the right. So I’m going to pull in the customer ID, the city, 5-digit zip goes the location, the state, the segments of each account – I’m not going to import the regional manager I don’t need that for this example, the territory ID that this account is assigned to, the rep name of the sales rep assigned to that, the district where this account lies and I’m also going to pull in some actual data for these accounts. I can drop those into account data. When you’ve pulled all your data from the left to the right you can click next. Once again you’ll have a summary screen of everything you’re importing. The main difference here as you notice if you watched the previous videos is that you can’t change the base geography or the country and that’s because we already have some data imported into this current file. So now click next. Once again all your data will be imported and if there are any errors you’ll have an error report that you can export and then fix it and then click okay. Now, if I zoom in – let’s zoom into the Kansas City area you’ll see all of my accounts have now been plotted here on the map and everything is broken down into the type of segmentation that I’ve imported. And that’s it, you’ve just learn how to import accounts data into AlignMix.

Navigating AlignMix

In this video you will learn how to navigate the tools and menus in AlignMix

In this AlignMix how to do video I’ll show you how to navigate AlignMix. Now some of these tools and features you’ll see in this video may seem familiar if you’ve used other mapping packages before. But if not it’ll be fine, it’s pretty easy. So let’s start.

When you open up a sales territorial alignment file, you’ll typically see a map here in the middle, you’ll see all these tools here in the top, a legend here in the top right only if you’ve imported account segmentations. If you didn’t and you’d like to watch one of the previous videos about how to import accounts. Here in the bottom right you get the zoom level, if you hit the minus button here you’ll decrease the zoom and the plus will increase. You can also use the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out and also the buttons here in the top left will do the same. If you click the zoom maximum here it will center and zoom out 100% for the US.

Next here on the left hand side you’ll see the latitude and longitude it will adjust as you move around on the map. And next to that you’ll see a pinpoint that will give you the zip-code, the name of the city and if there is an account it will give you the account ID and the account name.

So let’s move up here to the top home bar. First we have the pan button- the pan button allows you to simply move around your map. So if you’re zoomed into an area and you want to shift around you can click and hold on the mouse while using the pan tool to move the map. You can also hold the space bar when you’re using any other tool to activate this button, next is the distance tool – this allows you to measure the distance as a crow flies so basically in a straight line. It doesn’t take any consideration any drive time or the roads so it’s basically from point A to point B. So if you click and hold you’ll be able to activate this tool.

Next is the re-color tool – when you select the re-color tool and then you click on a territory, you’ll be able to change the color of that territory.

Then with the touch align tool and all these other tools you learn how to use those later in other videos. If you click here on the view you learn how to configure all your layers, in tools all the different tools you can use here. Under info, if you click on license and copyright, this is where you can import your new keys if you upgraded to AlignMix Pro and also links to the “how to” videos.

If you click on file this is where you save, open your files, update your current geographies or update the AlignMix software. We do recommend updating AlignMix software every 1 or 2 weeks because we do release bug fixes and also new features consistently. And there you have it you just learned how to navigate AlignMix.

Views and Layers

In this video you will learn how to toggle between the different views and layers.

In this AlignMix how-to video I’ll show you how to toggle between the different views and layers here in AlignMix. This will seem very similar to that of other mapping programs, similar to Microsoft MapPoint and others. So this may be easy for some of you seasoned users, but it’s also very easy if you’re a beginner. So let’s begin. Make sure you’ve open up your AlignMix file and now click here at the top on view. And here we had a bunch of selections. In this first section we have the configure and show map layers. So if I zoom into an area – let me zoom into the San Francisco San Jose area and let me kind of shift over a little bit so you can see it more.

The first option here under view is Point ZIP Codes, so if you want point ZIP codes to be shown you leave it here as it’s created in. If you click it again point ZIP codes will be removed. The same goes for account turning those off you remove the account from being seen on the screen. If you want your district borders to be seen – let me zoom out so you can see them – you enable that by clicking here just like that. Let’s zoom in again. Now if I don’t want the sales rep shown, click here. If you want to remove your static layers which will include your state boundaries, click that. If you want to remove your cities and roads – and that’s how you remove all those. You can also remove your territory labels or enable district labels which will show you the actual number of territories in your district as a default. You can also change it to show the district name.

Here in these next 2 sections – let me enable sales rep so you can see that and also the accounts. So right now sales reps are color-coded to match the territory that they’re assigned to. So if you click here it will just turn them all to a black color. So let’s leave that there. And also right now because your accounts are not selected in this view box, your accounts represent the segmentation here on the right-hand side. If you enable this button here for colors it will actually color code each account to match the color of the territory that they are assigned to. So just a way of finding account that should be in certain areas or shouldn’t be in some areas. So let’s toggle that back. Another cool thing about this view is if you click here on map you can change the different color palettes for your map. You have a whole drop-down menu here where you can choose different colors. Go back to view.

Now we’ll click on configure layers. Here in the configure layer options you can further customize the way that your layers appear here in your sales territory maps. Let’s start here by going to ZIP codes. The first thing you’ll notice is the scale bar here, this shows at what zoom levels your ZIP code boundaries will appear at; for this example they’ll appear at zoom level 8. You can also customize what type of label will appear if you zoom in to zoom level 12, you can either have the ZIP code number or the ZIP code name here. You can also select none if you don’t want any labels to appear. You can further customize where your ZIP code appears by selecting here to change the font and font size. If you do have districts imported or created in your map you can customize those further here. You can customize the color of your boundaries by clicking here and changing the color. You can also adjust what district labels appear, so right now we have the district label of number of territories appear in the grey color. So if you wanted another label to appear we can select district name to appear in a red and you can also customize that even further here. So let’s click okay to see how that looks. So now you see the pink outline for the district and then here in the rights text you can see that there are 11 territories in this district and this district is call the California district.

Let’s go back to configure layers. If you click here on territories it can do the same type of customization that we just did for districts, you can add labels, delete labels, adjust labels and further customize how your boundaries appear. You can also toggle on and off your US states which are static layers. You can choose which type of roads you would like to appear on your map and you can also customize the way your account segments are represented on your map. So for this example, let’s look at segment A, we can customize the color and also the shape and then also at what level you want them to appear at. So in this example segment A appears at level 5 and will reach maximum size of 32 pixels at zoom level 14. Let’s move on to sales rep here at the top. If you select sales reps you can actually change the type of icon that your sales rep is shown on the map. From here in the drop-down menu you can select about 100 different icons for the male icons and female icon. They are also customized at what level you want the icon to appear and the name of those sales reps to appear at. And that’s it; you’ve just learned how to use all your layers and views here in AlignMix.

Alignment Tools

In this AlignMix how-to video I’ll show you how to use all of the alignment tools that come with AlignMix. Before we start, I should mention that AlignMix was designed to be as simple and easy to use as possible. So a lot of these tools are designed for simplicity and ease of use. Now before we actually start creating sales territories I’d like to cover the alignment scope. That can be found here on the home toolbar. If you have ZIP code and account selected any changes you make to your sales territories will affect the ZIP codes and accounts. If you select only ZIP codes only the ZIP codes will change territories and the accounts will remain assigned to where there were originally assigned to. If you select only accounts only accounts will switch territories and the ZIP codes will remain assigned to the original territory. But for this example I’ll leave it as ZIP codes and accounts.

So let’s start by using the patent pending touch align tool. The touch align tool is basically like finger painting. So let’s zoom in to an area – let’s go into Denver here. So using the touch align tool if you click with the left button on your mouse you see that this territory is highlighted in red. If I start to color in these blank areas that are unassigned ZIP codes you’ll notice that this territory gets bigger. And just like that you’ve learned how to use the touch align tool here in AlignMix. If you would like to make this circle before you can use the brackets on your keyboard to make them bigger and smaller, like that.

So now let’s go to another area on the map and try to use the lasso tool. I’ll zoom into the Chicago area here. Select the lasso tool and click on a point and hold on the left button on your mouse and select an area and let go. Immediately you will be presented with a summary map query pop-up. Here you’ll be shown all the territories that you’ve selected, you can also click on the tab to see all the ZIP codes and on the accounts tab you’ll see all the accounts that are in that selected area. You can also filter through all of the stuff you’ve selected by clicking here and selecting which territory you’d like to filter and which account segments. So from here, if you click next you can assign that selected area into a new territory, add to an existing territory from this drop-down menu. You can un-assign all of them, copy all of that data to a clipboard or you could delete all the accounts that are found in that area. For this example, I’ll create a brand new territory and click next and just like that I’ve created a brand-new territory here called territory one.

So now let’s use the circle select tool. Let me zoom in to the Florida area – let me scroll down a little bit into Orlando, there we go. And from this drop-down menu here where you have lasso select I’m going to select the circle select tool and just like in the previous tool you click and hold and as you’re holding on the left button on your mouse you’ll see that the radius of the circle starts to expand. So if I’d like to create a new territory with the radius of 30 miles I’d let go. Once again, you get this map query summary screen it will show you the number of all your account segments, total potential sales and basically a combination of all the data that you’ve imported will be shown here. So let’s click next and I’m going to create a brand-new territory here. Click next again, and just like that you’ve created a brand-new territory called territory two.

The final territory alignment tool we have is the territory lasso, so this tool will actually lasso territories. So if I wanted to select two sales territories you’d make sure you selected lasso territories and then you select the territories that you want to select. When you let go of the mouse you get that same summary screen as you did with the lasso tool and the circle select tool. If we go next I can add all this to an existing territory. Let’s say one territory is absorbing the one next to it; so you do that here, click from the drop-down menu and I want to give it to this red territory which is 164. When you click next it absorbed that whole area and now you have combined two territories into one. And just like that you’ve learned how to use all the sales territory alignment tool here in AlignMix.

Touch Align Tool

The Touch Align tool is one of the quickest, easiest and most powerful ways of designing your territories. In this video we show you the basics and then move on to demonstrate some more advanced ways to use the tool.

Creating New Territories

In this video you will learn how to create new territories from scratch using three different alignment tools.

In this AlignMix how to video, I’ll show you how to create sales territories from scratch. Now you can begin with just a completely blank sales territory map or import some data like I have here in this example. Here I’ve imported account data and also sales reps but none of those are actually linked to a sales territory they are just imported to the zip-code that they are found in. So if I zoom into an area, you’ll see the sales territory accounts and the sales rep. Each sales rep is in a black color because they are not assigned to a sales territory. We’ll start here in the Los Angeles area – select the touch align tool and simply find an area you like to work in and simply click with the left button on your mouse and shade in the territory you want to create. And just like that I’ve created territory 1. If I do that again over here it will automatically name it territory 2 and again here I’ll do one for territory 3 just like that. And if I right click on any of these territories, go to properties, I’ll have a little summary screen of all the details relating to territory 2. You can rename your territory here, assign this territory to a sales rep and also assign to a district. If you haven’t created any districts you can do that by clicking Add and typing in for example Cali, click Add and okay. So let’s assign this territory to someone, let’s assign it to Xavier Charleston, so if click again on territory 2 and click here and start typing Xavier, just like that click OK, I’ve assigned Xavier Charleston to territory 2. So that’s how you create territories from scratch using the touch align tool. You can also use the lasso select tool. So let’s zoom into this Phoenix area and I’m going to click here in Cave Creek and start selecting an area while holding down the left button on your mouse and then you let go. So this area, for this area I’ve selected here, this is the summary of all the data located in that lasso area. Count of all the segments and the accounts, the number of zip-codes to territories, there’s not territories there but we `know there is 203 accounts. The summary of all the zip-codes with the territory but with this case there is no territory yet, same goes for the accounts all the account data is shown here. So we click next and create a new territory, click next again, just like that we’ve created territory 4.

So now let’s use the circle select tool, let’s come up here to the San Jose, San Francisco area. From the drop down menu click circle select, now I’m going to click and hold and pull a radius of 25 and let go. And in this screen its identical to that of the lasso tool, you get a summary screen, then zip-codes and accounts. You click next create new territory and you’ve created territory 5. And just like that you’ve learned how to create sales territories from scratch.

Creating an Alignment Index

In this video you will learn what an alignment index is, how to create one, and also how to import it into AlignMix

In this AlignMix how to video I’ll show you how to create an alignment index. Now we use an alignment index to create balanced sales territories. But before we begin creating an index. It’s important to learn exactly what it is. Sop an actual alignment index is a weighted index of factors that need to be balanced for a proper alignment. And we typically use three different data sets to create this alignment index workload, potential and sales. Workload is typically made up of about 60% of the entire index. Sales potential comes in at 30% and sales comes in at 10%. Now what is workload? Well for example it could be how many times a year you are calling on a customer. Potential is your ability to grow a business, or it could be target demographics, purchasing power or proxies. Sales, we call that an optional data set. If you don’t have current sales, that’s fine. You can leave that out and reallocate that 10% to the other two data sets. But we use sales to ensure that new sales territories actually do actually have sales in them. And you are able to trade off these factors. This is what we recommend. So you don’t have to use this process. If you have ten data sets, and you want to weight all of those differently, you are more than welcome to do that. So now that you have the basics of understanding the alignment index, lets jump into AlignMix and show you how to create one in the software.

The first thing you need to do is open up an AlignMix file that has some sales territories created with some data imported. Next, lets click here on tools, and then on Create Index. This will bring up our create index popup. Here you will also see all of the data sets that we imported into AlignMix. So, if you’ve imported 10 different data sets. You will see them here. The first step is to type in the number of territories that you are creating this index for. Now this is how many you plan to have at the end of the process. So, if you are adding sales territories make sure to include that here in your calculation. For this example, I want to calculate this index for my current sales territory design. And that’s for 102 sales territories. So 102. Now let’s assign our weighting. So for calls I am going to put 60%. For sales 10%. And potential value 30%. Then click ok. So you’ve just created that sales territory index, but you can’t see it. So if I zoom into an area. Click on home and configure layers. And I’ll add a second layer to my territories. Click here. And now index. So the average index should be around 1000 plus or minus 15%. This pink territory here (territory 178) is sitting pretty good at 932. So is this south Denver are 177 sitting at an index of 1061. But if you go over here to Omaha, territory 162, you’ll notice that, that territory index is almost at 1500. So this is one of those sales territories you need to trim up a little bit to balance your entire sales territory design. So keep watching. The video below will actually show you how to create balanced sales territories.

How to Create Balanced Sales Territories

In this video you will learn how to toggle the Index layer on and how to use the alignment tools to create balanced territories.

In this AlignMix how to video I’ll show how to balance your sales territories. Now before we begin make sure you’ve watched the previous video on how to create a sales territory index, then you can watch this video. So let’s start by zooming in to the Florida area down here and now let’s change the way our map looks with the layers, let’s turn off the accounts and sales reps this way it looks a little bit cleaner. So right now the number that appears on our map here reflects the territory ID, so I want to change that. Let’s change that from configure layers and let’s create a new one that’s territory data and I want the index to show, let’s get rid of the territory ID click OK and there we go. So now this number is the territory index, so we want this index to be around plus or minus 15% from 1000. So you can see that this blue territory is a little too heavy and this green territory here with West Palm Beach is too light, so what we should do is shift green down. To do that make sure you selected the touch align tool and now let’s zoom in a little bit more. So let’s click on the green territory with the touch of align tool and bring it down so you can see us kind of chipping away and each movement here in the zip-codes you’ll notice that the green territory increases in index points and the blue one decreases. So let’s go a little bit more, there we go, brought it down to Fort Lauderdale we’re at 853 and 1029, that’s still too low so let’s bring up the green territory a little bit into this yellow area. So there we go we brought it to 930 so now all 3 of these sales territories are pretty balanced. But it looks like these sales territories are a little too high but maybe we need to kind of shift all the sales territory index upwards. So we can do that by using the touch align tool again or we can use one of the lasso tools. So let’s start by using the lasso select tool and let me select an area here and as I select this lasso tool that red number starts to increase, that red number is actually the index. So in these 3 territories that I’ve selected in this red outlined area, there is an index of 375. So if I let go and I click here on next, from here I can assign the selected are to an existing territory or a new territory. But for this example I want to assign it to this purple area, so from the drop down menu I’ll select territory 156, click next. And just like that we’ve shifted all of that downwards. So basically we’ve brought yellow in the bounds that we would like, now the purple is still too high and so is the brown so we’ll have to do more shifting with the touch align tool. But before we do that, let’s use the lasso select tool and change to to the circle select tool. Using this tool you pull out that radius, so let’s select a radius of 41 miles, these 41 miles is actually an index of 351. So if I let go I can actually click next again and do the same process I did earlier and assign all that to territory 156. Just like that, I’ve brought it down from 1200 to just 1073, but this one is still way too high. So if I zoom up a little bit more I can use the touch align tool to start bringing this area down and chipping away. And there you have it you just learned how to balance your sales territories.

An important note that index isn’t everything, you also have to consider the geography of your sales territories. Always remember that there can be mountain ranges so your sales territory may not be able to cross that entire mountain range, you may have to split it down the middle. Same thing goes for other geographic barriers like large bodies of water, swamps for example and some organizations like to keep their sales territories within state boundaries. That would be another criteria you would have to use to balance your sales territories.

Assigning Territories to Districts

In this how to video, I’ll show you how to assign sales territories to districts. Now why would you need to do this? Well many companies like to use a hierarchy system where a district will encompass several territories, essentially having a district manager that manages those territory sales managers. Now before we begin, it’s important to setup what you’d like to call this hierarchy system, to do that you can click here on file, then click on application options and then if you click on project you can customize how you can call your districts and regions. You type in the word for when it’s a singular form and then what it’s like when it’s a plural. For this example I’ll simply stay with the default districts, click OK. Now we’ll start assigning some sales territories to districts and there are 3 ways to do this. The first way is to do them individually, the second way is to use the territory lasso tool and the third is to use the district map view. So let’s start by assigning them individually, let’s zoom into Maine, let’s right click and click on properties. Here you get a simple properties menu for this territory, if you have imported district data that would show up here into the drop down menu, but for this example we didn’t do that so we’re going to add them by hand. So click this Add button I’m going to name this new district New England, then click Add and then click OK. So if I go back and do the same process over, if I right click on the Maine territory, go to properties, you’ll see that the district is now New England, so I’ve assign those one sales territory to the New England district. So now let’s say I want to assign all of these here in New England to that same district, we can go to the lasso territories tool, select the territories you’d like to use simply by clicking and holding and dragging and then you let go. Then you click next and then assign territories to a district, in the drop down menu you can type in the name of the new district or when you click the little down arrow you can add them all to New England. Click next and just like that this whole area has been added to the New England district. Let’s try that again, so let’s say I wanted to create a district that encompasses all of California and Nevada, using this lasso territory tool I click here while holding down the left button on the mouse I select all the territories I’d like to use then I let go. Click next and now here I’m going to type in California and Nevada, then I click next and just like that I’ve added all of these to that same district. If go to properties you’ll see California and Nevada so let’s click okay. The third way we can create these districts is through the district map view to do that click up here and open up a new map tab and then select the second option, map showing the districts, click that. So right away you’ll see that we have 3 separate colors, this is the New England district and this is the California Nevada district and the number here represents the total number of territories found within each district. This 77 here represents the unassigned territories. So now we can actually use the touch align tool to assign territories to a district. So select touch align and start clicking. You can see that number increase with each additional territory that I add to that district. That’s great and all but I can’t really tell where these territories are located, to enable that view, click view here, click on configure layers and we can turn on the territory boundaries, let’s make that hot pink so we can easily see it. So each line here in the pink represents where all those territories actually lie in the district. I’d also like the name of the district to appear and not the number, let’s click on configure layers again, click here on districts, district labels. Now I’d like to add district name to appear so lets’ click OK. Now you can see district 2 California Nevada, New England and not assigned. So if I use the touch align tool again like so you can see I’ve created district 3, you can then go back and rename that to anything you would like. Let’s extend this further down, create a new district here and just like that you can start creating districts that will encompass all of your sales territories. Let’s look at our district table view, so once again click a new tab here, click on tables and click the second option tables showing the districts and their attributes. So just like that you can see a summary screen of every single district you’ve created, how many territories are found in each one, a breakdown of all the accounts and all the data that’s been assigned to those zip-codes. This table view essentially showing you a breakdown of all the data assigned to every single district. And there you have it you’ve just learned how to create sales districts in AlignMix.

Adding, Assigning, And Editing Sales Reps

In this video you will learn how to add new sales reps, edit your sales reps, and also how to re-locate them.

In this AlignMix how to video, I’ll show you how to add new sales reps, edit existing sales reps and how to reassign them. So let’s start by zooming into Florida were I know that I have a sales rep that needs to be moved to a new zip code. Here we have Angelo Schrut as you can see here he’s on the coast of Florida near Meritt Island, his actually just moved to Orlando. So I need to move his zip code. To do that you click here on edit sales reps, select his name from the drop down menu and the give him his new zip code and I know that’s 32801 and then click okay and just like that you’ve moved your sales rep to his new home zip code.

If the sales rep actually left the company you can use the same process, click edit sales reps and then you simply select him from the dropdown menu and then click delete and then if you click yes and then okay and that’s how you remove a sales rep if his no longer with your company. So now I’m going to show you how to reassign sales reps, so let’s zoom into the Dallas area. I have two sales reps here, one of them is assigned to territory 173 and this green sales rep is assigned to the green territory 172 but in actuality there are switching sides so the blue one is going to be working in the green and the green is going to be in the blue.

So we have Roger Silver and Jack Reese’s so we want to flip their assigned sales territories. So if I right click on this green territory, I click on properties and you bring that over here and currently we can see that Jack Reese’s is assigned to the green territory but it now needs to be Roger Silver so from the drop down menu I can search for Roger Silver just like that and click okay. Now you can see that he’s become a green colour and he’s assigned to this sales territory and now Jack Reese’s is in a black colour and that’s because he’s currently unassigned. So we right click again on this blue territory and you can see that nobody is assigned so if I just type in Jack and just scroll down Jack Reese’s right there and the click okay now he’s assigned, and you’ll notice that they outlined in a red colour and that’s because AlignMix knows that the sales rep actually lives outside the territory that they operate in.

So you wanting to change that you just simply bring his territory over using the pattern pending touch a line tool just like that and now he is within his territory. And you can do the same thing for Roger Silver. Just like that. If you wanting to add a brand new sales rep so let’s say we actually have someone new in Dallas in this area in the green territory. Now I want to add a brand new sales rep. So I’m going to name it Joey and in zip code 75205 click add and right there you can see that Joeys been added. Click okay just like that you created a new sales rep and assigned them to this green territory and doing so you’ve actually unassigned Roger Silver and actually Roger Silver has left the company. So we go in here and delete Roger Silver, so let’s find him. Click on him, click delete, yes, and okay and just like that you’ve learned how to add, edit and reassign your sales reps.

Territory and District Tables

In this video you will learn how to use the table view for sales territories and districts

In this AlignMix Had To video I’ll show you how to use territory and district tables. The first thing you do is open up an AlignMix file next click on the plus button here to open up a new tab, then click on tables and select the first option here. This one will show you the territories click that and right away you’ll see a table breakdown of all the information that you have in AlignMix, it’s broken down by territories. On the left hand side you’ll see the color of every territory, the id and the name and the sales rep that’s assigned to each sales territory. In the next column you’ll see the district of this territory and here in this check boxes you can check whether you want it to be visible on the maps or not visible. You can also lock each territory so you can’t make changes to it. Under the contiguous column this will tell you whether the sales territories are contiguous as in are there any little islands or satellites that are located outside that territory. So if you double click on no, right there you’ll notice that this green area is actually non-contiguous to the rest of the green area, so you can either give it to green or give it to this orange territory just like that. So let’s go back to the territory table. And as you can see that wasn’t the only one, so you trying to clean up all your territories you want to do this for every single sales territory and make sure they all in the yes.

Next you have a zip code count, so if you wanted every single territory to have the same amount of zip codes you’d be able to see that here. In these next 2 columns we have account overrides, accounts that exist in one territory but belong to the other one. Gains mean that you have 2 accounts located in someone else’s territory and loses mean that you have 3 accounts in your territory that belong to someone else and the rest of the columns are basically a summary of all the data located within each territory. A count of all the account numbers and then the sum of all the data that’s associated with all of those accounts. Next let me show you the district tables, so let’s open up another tab and select the second option. Here we get a very similar breakdown as you saw with the territory table but on a district level you can also choose to make them visible or not visible on the map or lock them if you don’t want any changes to be made.

Here you also get a count of the total number of territories this is a useful view because you can analyse why some districts are outperforming others and if you notice that one district has 14 territories and the other has 7 well that means one district is twice as big as the other one so that might require some changes in order to balance things out for those district managers. And the rest of these columns are very similar to that of the previous table where all the data is summed up for the district and there you go you’ve just learned how to use district and territory tables.

Analysis Tools

In this video you will learn how to use the charts and table analysis tools in AlignMix.

In this AlignMix How to to video I’ll show you how to use all the analysis tools that come with AlignMix. To start with I’d like to show you the hotspot view now when you opened up a file simply click on map and then click here on visible. This will create the hotspot view; basically it will show you where all the hotspots are located within a sales territory and those higher areas are represented by a darker shading of that color. To customize which data set is used, click here on the drop down menu and for this example let’s use sales so you can see the darker areas within each territory represent areas of higher sales and the ones that are in the lighter colors represent lower sales.

So let’s toggle that of, let’s go back to home now if we click here on the plus button we can click on maps and you’ll see different maps to choose from. This is where you find a thematic mapping we’ve already touched on the district maps so well skip that for this video lets click on this first one the thematic map showing the over and under. Here you will see which territories are over and which one are under a certain metric. So for this example click on the drop down menu and ill select the index so the ideal balanced sales territory design I actually have all of these in white. So this is actually a really good thematic tool to find which ones still needs some work.

So you can see the ones that are in dark blue, this North Dakota and South Dakota territory is way under, it’s very dark blue and the one neighboring; this Minnesota territory is actually dark red. So the way you could balance these two out is to shift some of this index from the right to the left. Which will hopefully balance these two out and you can do that when you go back to the territory alignment tab here and shift that from right to left. You can also customize this even further if you want to further customize this view you can adjust the percentages or the values to reflect different upper and lower bounds. So let’s move on to another fanatic map.

Click on the plus sign to open a new tab and let’s select this third option, thematic zip code map when you select this map it will default to the first type of data which is the account count. So let’s click here on index once again so this breaks down everything into zip codes so the darker areas represent zip codes with the highest index, white of course represents almost no index, so to further customize this map by clicking on custom categories let’s say we want 20 different buckets shown click okay now here in the index you’ll see 20 different buckets if I want to customize that even one step further let’s say I want this one bucket to be shown in a lime green color click okay and okay so now here in the legend you’ll see that 20 to 25 index and that will be shown in lime green and those are all shown on the map you can also click here to reverse the color map to show basically the opposite color view, lets revert back. You can also customize it the way your colors look.

So let’s open up another thematic map, let’s open the territory thematic maps essentially this is the same thing as the previous map only on a territory level. If we select sales using this view we can see which territories have the highest sales. Of course the dark blue ones, the light colored ones especially the white ones have the lowest sales so just from this view alone you can find that this North and South Dakota almost no sales compared to the ones neighboring it. So you do have to do some more balancing here for this to work. And now let’s look at our final analysis tool. When you select the chart you have a very easy to use chart that will be based on any data set that you select here from the top menu so let’s select index.

Now here we can see which territories fall within a certain range that we’ve set. So if we’ve set a range of 15 percent for our index. So in the start here you can see that about 30 territories are over our set index and that means we not seeing all of our potential clients because these territories are too high index and then you see that we have 41 territories that are below index, so here we have to do some more balancing this is still an incomplete sales territory design.

If you go back to our first tab and start realigning and balancing all your sales territories based on the index and once you’ve done a completed balanced sales territory design all of this will be balanced out and you won’t have any territories that are over and non that are under. So this is another tool to use when you trying to create balanced sales territories and that’s it you just learned how to use all the thematic tools here in AlignMix.

Exporting Maps and Data

In this video you will learn how to export maps and data from AlignMix.

In this AlignMix How to video I’ll show you how to export maps and data from AlignMix. So let’s begin by just exporting the map that you see on the screen. To do that click on tools and then click here on copy map. As soon as you click on copy map this image is placed in your clipboard where you can easily paste it into any presentation medium, just like that and there you go you’ve been able to export that map image. Next thing we going to do is we going to click save image and you can save this file anywhere on your computer. Now let me show you how to export data, to do that click on file, export and export to excel. Here you can select the type of data you like to export for this example ill select all of them. If you click next you can customize the color and the paper size and also how your tables look. So let’s click finish and save this to my desktop click save.

As soon as you click save that file will start to export and it will open up as soon as it’s finished. As soon as the file is done exporting it will open up on your desktop and here you can see you first have all the territories and all the data associated to that territory. Same goes for the accounts tab, the zip code tab and the sales rep tab. And that’s where you can export all of your territory data. And the final way you can export your data is through a batch export. This will export images and data and then file them into district folders. So let me show you how to do that, click on file, export and batch export, now you choose where you would like to save your file, so I’m just going to create a new folder on my desktop.

New folder 2 for this example, click okay and here id like district maps territory maps and excel reports with all the possible data included, click next. I’d like everything sorted into folders, I’d like them to be zipped and I’d like to hide other districts and territories so that each territory is printed on its own. When you click next it will start the export process, this will take a few minutes depending on how districts and territories you have and how much data you have imported into AlignMix, when that complete you can pull up all your data and look through it. When the batch export is complete you’ll be able to open up your file and all your data will be sorted into district folders. So for example if I click on the Buffalo folder here you’ll see its been zipped then if I click on one of the territory id numbers you’ll have a printed PNG file and also an export of all the data associated with that territory. And at the bottom of this export you’ll actually have a PNG file that will show you the entire district that contains all of the territories that are assigned to that district and there you have it you just learned how to export your data and maps from AlignMix.

AlignMix

AlignMix is a sales territory mapping and design software, which uses our unique touch align technology. This is a breakthrough in ease of use. With our how to videos and blog posts you can start creating new balanced sales territories in just a few clicks.